CLEMSON — The disqualified winner of an area House seat's Republican primary has asked a judge to block the party from certifying the man who came in second.

In papers filed in Richland County court on Friday, Ed Harris also asks for the court to compel the state and Pickens County election commissions to place his name on the ballot as the GOP candidate.

Less than three weeks remain for the Republican Party to inform the State Election Commission who it wants as its general-election candidate for the Clemson-area House District 3 race, and the month-long battle between its two candidates shows no signs of abating.

A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 10 for a judge to consider evidence in Harris' injunction request, his attorney, Stephen Brown of Greenville, said Wednesday.

Harris won the June 12 primary for House District 3, but B.R. Skelton, a five-term incumbent who lost by 73 votes, successfully challenged Harris' qualifications to state GOP Chairman Chad Connelly earlier this month.

Political parties face an Aug. 15 deadline to submit a list of certified candidates to the state and county election commissions for the Nov. 6 general election.

As of Wednesday, the Republican Party had not yet turned in such a list.

Harris' filings last week were in response to a lawsuit Skelton filed on June 27 that alleges Harris and a Pickens County party official, Phillip Bowers, conspired to commit fraud when they both said Harris had filed his election paperwork properly.

In his response, Harris denies all allegations of fraud and conspiracy.

Brown said Skelton's lawsuit provides no documentation of wrongdoing but his client and Bowers have gone to great expense defending themselves.

"Mr. Skelton and his lawyer, James Smith, have publicly stated here that Bowers and Harris are liars, that they are committing fraud and that they have committed this conspiracy to lie," Brown said. "They have no evidence, zero evidence, to back that up.

Brown said Skelton's lawsuit was frivolous, and he has asked in his response that Skelton therefore pay his client's legal costs.

"You are supposed to do an investigation and have evidence to support what you are claiming," Brown said.

Smith could not be reached for comment Wednesday, though he has said before that the litigation would have been unnecessary had Harris not pursued a fraudulent candidacy and that Skelton's lawsuit is about upholding the rule of law.

When the state GOP's Connelly said on July 9 that he had disqualified Harris as a Republican candidate, that should have opened the way to making Skelton the de facto Republican nominee, as the only qualified candidate left standing.

But Brown said an earlier unanimous vote by the party's executive committee supported Harris' candidacy.

No Democrats have filed for that race. Meanwhile, Harris has gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot as a petition candidate if he loses his bid to be the GOP nominee.

As the ruling body of the party, Brown said, the executive committee's decisions outrank those made by Connelly alone.

A week ago, the party's executive committee voted — again unanimously — "to affirm what Chad Connelly did in this case and affirm his ability to do it in the future," according to party executive director Matt Moore.

"It was a unanimous, unified vote that the state party Chairman has a duty to uphold the rule of law," Moore said in an email.

Such a vote, Brown said, falls short of reversing the committee's decision on June 21, reached after witnesses gave sworn testimony, that Harris had filed properly.

Questions over Harris' candidacy arose this summer when neither he nor Bowers could produce a paper copy of the candidate's statement of economic interest. This form is required — in paper form and along with a statement of intention of candidacy — when candidates not already holding office file to run, according to rules issued in May by the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Harris said he did give a paper statement of economic interest to Bowers when he filed in March. Bowers has sworn he saw it, too.